The Invisible Ship


In 1943 some bright person at McGill University reasoned that since the only reason you can see a darkened ship at night is because it appears darker than its background, if one could lighten the ship a bit it would become invisible. HMCS Rimouski was selected for a trial effort. She was fitted with special diffusing lights and painted a unique colour; and the trials at St. Margaret’s Bay were quite successful. Her CO was J.R. Pickford (later Rear Admiral, RCN) and in his words, “We went out in a boat until we couldn’t make out the ship with the naked eye with the diffused lighting off. Then when they switched it on, we could not see her at the same distance with binoculars. So, remembering that binoculars are six or seven power the visibility of the ship has been drastically reduced. From inboard though the effect was really weird because we had all these lights. We could read on the bridge. You could walk about the ship without tripping. After years of blackout it was uncomfortable, but it really worked.”

Fitted with this diffused lighting Rimouski was on hand when several escaped German prisoners of war were captured on the beach at the Bay of Chaleur, but her job to intercept the U-boat waiting for the escapees was unsuccessful. She kept the diffused lighting for a few more months but the increasing use of good radar put an end to it. Besides, as Pickford says, “it was very disconcerting when it went wrong to get a signal from another ship saying that we were lit up. Also, I’m told that this lighting illuminated our bow wave and our wake with nothing in sight in between which was a very ghostly site indeed.”

Reprinted from the Peterborough Naval Assn. Bulletin



© 2004 HMCS Huron Association
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